Once in a rare while
The stars align.

And next time the clouds
Part I'll remember to
Appreciate
The moment.

Once in a rare while
A star falls from the sky.

I once caught one
Wasted it on a frivolous wish
When all along I
Should have used it on you.

When you cracked
The sky cracked, too.

And all the feelings
I had tried so hard to
Get past
Fell through the shattered atmosphere.

And in the chapel
Bathed in fragile glass light
The coffee was well-disguised
But bitter, like you.

And the hard bench and off
White wall
Reminded me well of
A home no longer mine
Reminded me well
We all have demons.

When you cracked
The sky cracked, too.

She burst into our lives one summer
In an explosion of glitter and cat ears
And into the darkness of our young lives
She became a light.

She demanded my friendship
Commanded my respect
Reprimanded my bad choices
And expanded my views.

She's the one who got me writing poetry
She taught me how to worship
And how to question authority
She told me to speak up
To be myself
And I learned from her fearless example.

We shared some scars
And she was never afraid of telling me the straight-up truth.

She wasn't perfect
Sometimes she destroyed feelings
And shoplifted our hearts
But I learned from that, too.

And then one day with a toss
Of those red curls, one of those
Hugs that made everything better
And a swing of the metal heart hanging on her chest
She was gone, just like that
But I'll never forget she changed my life
And I'm still changing it through
Rachel, this one's for you.

Do you ever get
The feeling
Not of deja vu
But of the curious
Sensation that at some
Point in your recent
Past you already
Lived this day?

Oh wait
I think they
Call that
Deja vu
Now
Don't they?

Cracked sidewalks
Hopeful puddles
And the downtown umbrellas
Racing with the cars
In the rain of
Toasty libraries
You sat on the floor like always.

Downtown coffee shops
Roasted from the finest and most
Impertinent beans
Never forget the
Kind of damp days we
Spent together.

Sweeter now the cherries
Taste than before you
And somehow they'll always
Remind me of you
But life, our
Unforgotten years
Can always remember to
Keep you and yours alive, in our hearts, don't
Say goodbye.

It was so hot
The dogs stretched out flat
In yards and flopped on
Front porches were
All running like Boeing 737s.

It was so hot
At the end of the
Church service all the
Church ladies scattered
Just like that.

It was so hot
That even the
Atmosphere groaned
And the forests wished
For air-conditioning.

It was so hot
The letters threatened to
Melt as fast as I
Could possibly apply
Them to a page.

It was so hot
I simply forgot
To breathe and instead
Wondered why
The stifled world still turned.

The shadows flick
Faster and faster of
The fan until it
Turns into a UFO and
Detaches from the
Ceiling to fly away.

I'm drunk on
Exhaustion
High on
Poetry.

The invisible pattern
On the wall begins
To dance, the curlicues
Tangoing with fleur-d'les
To the silent drumbeat
Of my heart in my ears.

I'm intoxicated from
My thoughts
Completely smashed on
Shards of mirrors and the
Dregs of any
Innocence I had left.

I'll watch the numbers
Flash backwards, just
Let time turn around
Clocks will melt
Even in air-conditioning
I've got a
Pounding headache and
Tomorrow I'll be
Hungover
On my soul.

Rumble strips and road trips
Drive until I catch the night
Right shoulder tears for all my fears
Thruways admit I lost the fight.

An eye for an eye
Left turn for left turn
GPSs always lie
A truth for a truth
Reroute our directions but we'll
Never regain our wasted youth.

Now again I'm drifting off
The road signs mean I'm never lost
But the rumble strip will always grind
Until I forget what I drove to find.

Highway markers flashing by
In tired hate I wonder why
Until the sun must also rise
This painful day will be reprised.

Hands off the wheel, forget to blink
This desolate night is not what you think
A split second glance in my rearview
Confirms what I already knew
For though my stance to run was wrong
There's no denying you were in the back seat all along.

We told citronella secrets
Under the summer stars
When the Christmas lights burned
Out of the airy tent
The tiki torch tradition
Was newly begun.

We told laughing love stories
As we walked the phantom dog
Down the silent, midnight road
Occasionally lit up by giggling headlights.

We drank soda from crinkling cans
Sipping down our suppositions
Rehashing the year and all
Our misconceptions by the
Light of the tropical
Tribal flames.

We told citronella secrets
And shared our autumnal fantasies.

There are
Cities
In me.

A small town girl full of
Cities.

The only time I am ever
Alone
Is when the oceans of
People
Surround me
Concrete walls and window tiles
Every face dissolves
Into every other, just
Blur the skylines
A little more.

I always feel the restless
Energy, but only when
The ceaseless floods of
Mankind wash me over.

There are
Cities
In me.

Every block, every brick
Every beam and every balcony
Every inch of this
World in me.

There are
Cities
In me.

But I saw once face
In all the seas of shifting life
And suddenly the smoke-rimmed sky
Parted ways for you.

On the escalator mountaintop
Friday evening at seven
One face, one name
Made its way through
The tiled maze, and then
Astoundingly
I woke up from my
Metropolis dreams.

In one split
Second, the thousands of
Souls, all shoved
Together, swayed
To reveal
Just two souls, spotlighted
You
And me.

There are cities
In me
But never
Can anyone
But you
Light up the roving night.